


The Cold Case

by Jadenite



Category: Longmire (TV), Walt Longmire Mysteries - Craig Johnson
Genre: F/M, M/M, Martha Longmire/Walter Longmire/Henry Standing Bear (past), Sexual Assault, Vampirism, Vic Moretti/Walter Longmire (past), Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:13:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadenite/pseuds/Jadenite
Summary: Sheriff Walter Longmire followed up on a reported body in town. Little did he know that there would be more than one before the week was out. The Sheriff’s department would employ Henry Standing Bear to help track the elusive killer, but even the best tracker in Absaroka wasn’t up for the task. And this would place Walter and his best friend square in the killer's crosshairs.*Under revision
Relationships: Walt Longmire/Henry Standing Bear
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	1. Carpe Diem

_Friday Night:_

_Make hay when the sun shines._ His ma used to say that, before the cancer wore her down to a nub; a pale thin shadow of her old self. He remembered thinking, standing over the grave, that she had died long before her heart gave out on her. He remembered the bitter silence of standing at the grave, and all the eyes watching him. He’d been the favorite son, and he couldn't even give the damn eulogy he had penned the night before. _Ma was right_ , he thought to himself. Take the lemons life throws at you, and find your own damn sugar to make it go down smooth. Yeah, that’s what she would have wanted for him -- not this -- this dreary, dismal place.

He should have listened and seized the fucking moment back at the bar. The worst that would have happened was being shot down. He was a big boy; he could have taken it like a man. He swallowed, suppressing the urge to laugh like a lunatic. Stress bowed his shoulder, and regret etched harsh lines into his young face s he reviewed the choices that had brought him to this moment. He wondered if what people said about bright white lights was true, or just garage to make others feel okay about death. Did ma see something beautiful, or just endless dark and an empty void? He wasn’t a believer -- but for ma? Well, he hoped maybe there was something more beyond. He hoped so for himself, too.

Somewhere out in the dark a barn owl screeched. He blinked rapidly, shaking himself from his stupor, his body shivering. Brown hair flopped over his face, and he shook it off, his nose scrunching in irritation. His nose itched but he didn’t reach for it, straining to put it from his thoughts. _Out of sight, out of mind, and all that shit._ He didn’t want to think about his itching nose, his shivering body, or the coldness of the night that loomed ahead like a insurmountable mountain. It was cold in here, so cold his teeth were chattering. He grimaced, regretting every step he’d taken since leaving the most talked about bar in _Wyoming_. Ending the night here – alone – sure as hell hadn’t been part of his weekend-getaway plan.

He had liked the bar; he should have _stayed_ at the damn bar. It had been warm, and not so crowded that bar fights broke out left and right. It had been a low-key kind of homely -- for a bar stuck in a town with only one sheriff and two deputies. He’d thought maybe life really was that different in the country and there was not as much call for _SWAT_ teams and _Police Stations_ at every corner stop.

Boy had he been wrong….

He shut down that train of thought, thinking about the bar. How much he’d liked it. Enjoying how different the place, and the people, was to the ones he was used to. _'A continual soirée'_ was the establishments’ renowned party line, and fairly deserving of it too. At least, it had been more fun than he’d expected to find way out in this sleepy little corner of _Wyoming_.

Cold beer, good burgers, and a hot bartender: the three things he loved best about any bar. He should have stayed at the damn bar and kept talking with the handsome Indian who owned the place. Henry, that’s what his name was. He seemed like an interesting man, plenty of stories to tell about bull-headed, lone-ranger sheriffs and escaped convicts. He didn’t know that he believed him exactly. What kind of man walked into an oncoming storm – alone -- after a pack of killers? Still, it had been entertaining to chat with someone he’d never met and knew Jack-shit about him and his family’s money.

To top it off, the bartender sure hadn’t been giving him the stink-eye for coming on to him at the bar. What was it called? It was the _Red Pony_ , yes. That was it! The man who owned the establishment had had a kind smile, and a great ass.

He didn’t have daddy issues, but, well. The man had an ass worth checking out, even in a place like Wyoming. And he would know -- he’d spent a good hour watching the bartender flit around the place with that easygoing grin.

He should have stuck around ‘till after hours and asked for _his_ number, if he was single, if he was _interested_. There were worse ways to spend a night than throwing himself at a nice-looking man who wasn’t exactly beating him back with a stick. _Oh God. Oh God. Why didn’t I do that?_

That’s what he should have done, wasn’t it? To hell with risks! He should have marched right up to the bar and said…well, something more than what he had done. He swallowed, tears stinging his eyes. His wrists were throbbing again. He shook it off; it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. He was cold, too. But he didn’t want to remember why.

He squeezed his eyes closed when he felt lips nuzzle at his shoulder, hot breath ghosting over bare skin. It would have been a major turn on – if he weren’t tied up. His arms were aching from being stretched over his head for so long.

“You smell delicious,” the voice at his back murmured. He recognized that he would have been so into this in his teens. He used to have a thing for vampires; and this man had the vampire-wannabe vibe going full throttle. But he’d outgrown that phase and the idea of some man biting into his neck made him shudder. He rattled the chains holding him in place but it was useless. _Oh God._ He should have taken his mom’s advice: _‘be bold, be brave, and be prepared for a shit ton of rejection.’_ If he’d asked the _nice_ guy at the bar if he maybe wanted to go back to the hotel for the night he might not be here, with the creepy not-nice guy breathing down his neck. That’s what he should have done.

_To late now. To fuckin’ late._

“You are afraid, aren’t you?”

He trembled, uncaring that it was unmanly or whatever. He was afraid, and he didn’t want to die in a shack in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere _Wyoming_ of all places.

“Yes, yes I am fuckin’ afraid. I don’t wanna die, please, please let me go.”

The voice in the shadows hummed absently as a cold hand wormed under his clothes to stroke his belly, fingers teasingly pulling at the hem of his boxers. “All things which live, die. An _acquaintance_ said that to me once.”

“That’s…that’s deep…” he muttered, unable to stop himself. He talked. It’s what he did when he was scared. And he was so fucking scared he almost pissed his pants.

“It is flawed logic, one which assumes that in order to truly enjoy the offerings of living one must also know the finite measurement of their time. As I said, inherently flawed when one has nothing but time to watch the world shift and change and end, only to reform itself from the ashes of the old. A phoenix perpetually reborn on the blood and bones of the past.”

“Flawed, uh, right.”

“But you need not concern yourself with time, pet. Your pain will be brief and then it _will_ come to an end.”

He closed his eyes, a scream gurgling in the back of his throat as terror ripped through his chest.

His last coherent thought was this:

_Oh God. Oh God. So, so stupid. I shoulda taken that chance._


	2. A head full of memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt remembers, regrets, and embraces the present.

_Saturday, Walt’s Cabin:_

Walter Longmire eyeballed the cobwebs that had collected at the corner of his bedroom and wondered when all that had started up. He supposed it must have been a little after things went sideways between him and Vic. Just thinking of that made the hurt bubble up inside like a pot leaking hot water. He and Vic were good together until they _weren’t;_ it was as simple and _simply terrible_ as that. They hadn’t fit how they had hoped they might, and eventually it had cut too deep to keep on trying. 

Vic, her eyes blazing with a frustrated anger, had snapped having had enough of his shit. And he hadn’t been much better in the end, they hadn’t known to how fit as a couple and after a time stopped trying. Maybe some of the blame was on him; he never had been much good at saying what what on his mind and in his heart. Spent to much damn time with people who could read the real important stuff as if his were a particularly simple book.

He didn’t remember where exactly it went off, like soured milk left in the sunlight. But he remembered when he knew she’d had enough of _him_. He recalled the flash of gold-blond of her ponytail catching his eyes while she stood there with her hands on her hips and her head shaking, nose scrunched up in annoyance. He recalled her her voice cut through the air, and sliced into him hard as a Harvest scythe. _‘We can’t keep doing this, Walt. I can’t keep doing this. It’s a round hole and a square peg, thing, though, hell if I know who’s who in that scenario.’_

Vic had been right, of course.

It had been time to pull stakes and move on before they charred the last cordial threads left to dangle between them and then of course they’d had their jobs to think of – he was the sheriff and she was his trusted deputy. It was smart of her, cutting out when she had before it all went to hell. And boy-howdy had they had some blow-ups at the cabin.

No one in town would soon forget the one memorable instance at the _Busy Bee_ of all places, when the boat got to rocking and not in the good bedroom rockin’ way. Letting go wasn’t his strong suit so Vic had pulled the plug rather than let them dither over the necessity of getting while the getting was good. It turned out artist and composer _Sedaka_ had it all wrong and breaking up _wasn’t_ so hard to do.

But that didn’t mean it felt any good. No. It felt like dying the death of a thousand cuts that moment when he realized it was over with Vic; that this new and fragile thing he’d been holding onto had slipped away when he wasn’t looking. Maybe they had both been holding on to a false image and a false hope that had never existed. It seemed he knew nothing about anything these days. Only that it had ended. 

Walt glared at the cobwebs, picking out three different spider species congregating in the corner, and suppressed a shudder. He privately wondered how much pride it would cost if he were to ask Henry to move the damned things. Else, he was going to end up with more. He wasn’t so eager for company that he was looking to extend low-level amity towards insect-life; and sure as shit not in his bedroom with its too many ghosts and broken dreams. He hated spiders, for so long as he could recall, he always had. There was just something about all those beady little black eyes, and their long squirmy legs that made his skin crawl.

But not Henry. No. Henry was one of _those_ people. He could get the damned things to crawl into his hand.

The little bastards didn’t even bite _him_ as he calmly placed them outside. Henry had done a lot of shit over the years, most of it pretty damn brave, but to Walt that right there always took the cake. Tricking spiders into the palm of his hands and letting them catch a ride back into the big bad wide world outside of the cabin. 

_‘That is where they belong, Walt,’_ Henry used to say. According to Henry Standing Bear everything had its place. Even the creepy million eyed spiders that liked to gather in small, dark corners of Walt’s cabin. He decided it was time to crack open the bug spray. What Henry didn’t know would… probably come back to bite Walt on the ass later but Walt was doing it anyway. Eventually. If he could just remember where he’d left the damn _WD40_.

Walt vividly remembered how unimpressed with him and his almost-but-not-quite-suppressed shudder Henry had been in the old days. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, Walt supposed little had changed in that regard. No, no, there would be not mentioning of this to Henry Standing Bear. He would deal with the little eight-legged cling-on’s alone when he was packing some _WD40_ to clear them out -- and all their little baby spiders, too.

Walt stared at the ceiling adrift in pleasant memories, the ones that had been lost to him when he’d been mired in grief and thoughts of vengeance on Jacob Night Horse and Miller Beck. All that pain had made him forget the good stuff, the laughter and the happiness of quiet moments. He chuffed under his breath recalling Martha had had herself a real belly aching laugh when she learned about his spider-phobia.

_'My hero,’_ she would sing-song hanging off Henry’s arm after he’d removed the eight-legged insect from their living space. More than once the spiders had only be a thinly veiled ruse to get Henry _in_ the house. Martha plied his best friend with honeyed kisses and a warm embrace. Walt often left to lean against a doorframe or chair, watching the two halves of his heart cling and touch, his hands fisting at his sides as he itched to do some touching and clinging of his own when his chance came along. They sure had been a pretty sight: Martha with her sunshine-bright hair tumbling down her back in a cascade of gold that he and Henry both enjoyed sinking their fingers into balanced against the darker complexion of his Cheyenne best friend – Henry’s hair had been a little longer in those days.

Walt missed it, a little. He had enjoyed holding the back of his ponytail when they kissed, and tugging at it when Henry went onto his knees for him. Henry had cut it off when a surly drunk used it to get a hand-hold on him in a bar-fight, and Walt couldn’t rightly blame the man. Henry had come within inches of a severed carotid artery.

Still, if memory served Henry’s hair had been just as soft, just as _nice_ sliding through his fingers as Martha’s.

_Spider, stick to the damn spiders_ , Walt reminded himself as he felt arousal surge through him leaving him in a sorry state. It didn’t sit quite right, thinking of Henry _like that_ ; all strong muscles and bare bodies pressed together in bed. Not when they hadn’t been together like that for some time.

_Stick to the damn spiders_ , he reminded as his thoughts began to spiral and his breathing shorten. _Spiders, right_. For his part he’d taken it like a man when Martha called Henry to deal with the little monsters. He’d have his hands tucked under his elbows until Henry returned from relocation duty, at which time he’d silently point to the nearest sink where his friend could wash the remnants of spider-footprints off his hands. 

‘‘ _Spider footprints’_ , really Walter?’ Henry had smirked, conceding to his wishes without further complaint.

“Alright, Walt,” he’d used to say, making a show of washing his hands clean of the spider footprints. Martha had stood off to the side, her hand over her mouth to cover her matching smirk. Martha would’ve boxed his ears for all the shit he’d gotten into the last few years – all the things he’d let himself be blinded to. He heaved a tired sigh, nostalgia wearing off as the nights drinking began to settle in for the long haul. Walt peeked his eyes open, before slamming them shut again. It was still too bright on his eyes, and the aftereffects of a night of drinking were coming down hard. Those had been some great times, fun too, back in the early days.Maybe it was time to see about make new memories in the here and now, and loosen his grip on the past. It wasn’t going anywhere, it would always be right there in his mind, if he cared to look back.

_‘You used to be fun,’_ Henry had said, _scowled_ really, with this look of disbelief. It felt like a lifetime ago when he’d done anything besides close cases and put bad guys behind bars. 

Walt resisted the urge to groan; the last thing he wanted to admit was that the other man was right. Again. But he was, dammit. Henry had a point; not that he’d ever admit this fact to the man. Somewhere along the way he’d forgotten how to lighten up, to take a ribbing in good faith and with no hard feelings. Losing Martha had been like losing a limb; maybe worse. 

He could’ve learned to live without an arm, or a hand. Learning how to live without Martha hadn’t been half that easy. He didn’t know how to cut loose and let the pain go. So, the pain had hung around, like a half-severed limb, its nerve ending sparking and raw whenever a sore spot got touched. He’d gotten no real peace until he’d uncovered the truth and recognized he had to loosen his death-grip on the past. Until then, he’d had no shot at making anything work with _anyone_. Too bad he’d missed the mark with Vic. 

Walt supposed it might’ve been the tensions between Vic and Cady that put the last nail in the coffin of what might have been. The women had rubbed each other wrong from day one. Family dinners had gotten tense at the tail end. Cady, Vic, and Henry and him all squashed around a table that wasn’t built to seat over three. 

Cady would say it was a sign that he needed a bigger _table_. Henry would say he was shoving his feet into boots that didn’t fit right to appease what he thought was the _right thing to do_. Martha, well, he knew what she’d have had to say. _‘Honey, you’re not seeing the trees for the forest. In all the changes in your life, where is that one line of razor clarity that’s never left you in the cold?’_

Walt wouldn’t have a proper answer for her. He’d hoped...well, if wishes were roses, he’d be lying in a sweeter smelling bed. One that didn’t smell of last night’s sweat, stale beer, and bad morning breath. And yet here he was. In bed. Alone. Staring at the spiders on the wall, wondering how it had come to this. His subconscious, sounding eerily like Henry at his most self-righteous, said: _‘You fucked up, Walter.’_

_Boy-howdy_ , he had, hadn’t he? His Henry-sounding subconscious was correct, too. A notion, that did nothing but nettled the annoyance aching in his belly. Same as the actual flesh and blood man currently sleeping on his couch. Henry had the unpleasant habit of being _right_ when Walt least wanted to acknowledge that fact. 

Walt groaned into the arm he’d flung over his face to block out the sun, trying to creep into his vision. Sunlight was hell on the eyes in the morning after a drinking binge. Set-backs in life were God’s punishment for indulging Pastor Simmons used to preach in his Sunday sermons. And this was one hell of a set-back, that was for damn sure. But Walt figured a broken heart entitled him to a little sinning; even if it was his own damn fault. 

Walt blew out a tired breath, feeling like the cranky old bastard he could sometimes be in the early pre-dawn hours. Fool that he was he’d really thought he and Vic were going to be okay; them both having made peace with their departed dead. As if that was the only thing that could come between two lonely hearts that didn’t know quite how to belong to one another. It just hadn’t been in the cards for them, it seemed. At least they knew that it was them, the _living_ , and not the dead that had made it impossible. Sometimes that’s how it went with these things. No matter how much love there was, it didn’t always work out. If it were only a matter of _love,_ it might not have been Vic’s arms he’d gone crawling into. 

Walt didn’t precisely know whom it was that should take the blame on this one, him or Vic? The gentleman in him said the lady was always right. The lesser gentleman said it took two to tango, and it took two to burn down a barn. It took one person to light the match, another to stoke the tinder. This was the third relationship he’d torched. His stomach flopped riotously and his brow furrowed, reminiscent of a bleak thundercloud at the realization. 

Absently counting the strands of the spider’s web, losing track at twenty, Walt wondered if Henry would tell him who was to blame should he get up the nerve to ask his friend. Walt grunted to himself and the spiders, wondering if he could really feel their legions of eyes fixed on him, or if that was just the alcohol talking. He decided he had better not ask Henry Standing Bear what he _thought_. 

Henry _liked_ Vic. He liked her a little at least. So if he went and asked Henry, looking for an honest answer, as so often happened he’d get the unvarnished truth. While there were times it could be a great boon having a best friend to lay it out like it was, there were also times it was a pain in the ass. This was one of those pains in the ass times. 

He couldn’t stomach that much truth at the moment, so he figured he’d better hold off on asking. Right or wrong, he preferred to believe that torching what they’d had had been a mutual effort. It hadn’t happened all at once, but here he was all the same. Alone. And _damn_ if that didn’t sting like lemon squeezed onto an open wound; a wound that was liable to fester if he didn’t let it alone. 

Vic Moretti was a hell of a woman. More than he deserved. She was fire and bridled fury, encased in a strong, curvaceous body that he had enjoyed worshipping while she was _his_ to worship. She was also bullheaded, reckless, and absolutely certain that she was right. And so was he. The problem between them might have laid somewhere in that mix. He seemed to have a habit of collecting people with an unwavering sense of rightness in their spirits; they anchored him, and sometimes unmoored him, too, when he found his own truths to be pale in comparison. Vic Moretti and Henry Standing Bear were people of conviction; they each knew the path they were walking and _where_ they were going. 

Vic, like Henry, knew when to cut her losses and leave the table. 

Walt laid flat on his back, recalling that while Ruby clucked at him in Grandmotherly sadness when she got the news, she didn’t shake her finger and say _‘I told you so.’_

“You are a grown man, Walter, you make your own choices. I am sorry that it didn’t work out with Vic” Ruby had said. 

“I hear Donna is still working in Sheridan?” Ruby had absently suggested. As if she wasn’t trying to fix him up with the old flame she had actually approved of. 

Ruby had never been keen on the idea of him and Vic being _him and Vic_. Walt had turned down Ruby’s well-intended offer; he firmly believed that was water over and under the bridge. What he’d had with Donna had sunk a long time ago. Trying to fix him up was just Ruby’s way of showing that she cared; Walt loved her for that. 

Henry’s way of saying it, _without actually saying it_ , was different; but no less loved. His friend had let him lead the conversation in his halted and stilting way, offering him a drink and a sympathetic ear if he wanted it. That was Henry’s way. 

Henry did not say _‘what is done, is done.’_

Walt loved him for that, too. 

Henry, being a good friend, had tried to set him up to, which had just been odd. It was always a little _odd_ to him when Henry did that, what with the nature of their past being what it was. Still, he appreciated the gesture more than his expression let on. Walt remembered Henry chatting amiably with two nice looking ladies at the bar and the way they had both leaned forward into his easygoing charm. He remembered thinking: _if he wants, Henry can end the night with both of them in his bed should he play his cards right._

Henry was good at playing cards. 

*** 

_Thursday, Walt’s Cabin:_

Walt and Vic had just come off of a harsh, tragic case: a missing kid found dead down a ravine. There was no one to blame but bad luck and God. They had their last whispered argument, both saying things that shouldn’t have ever been set loose into the world. And that was that; the end of the road. 

_But that was the tail end, not the beginning_ , his subconscious rebuked. And that was right, too. The Sammy Tillman Case was the straw to break the camel’s back, but things had been wrong for some time before. 

Vic had packed her bags in stony silence, and that was how Walt knew she was just plain done with him. Walt lay in bed, staring at the spiders staring back at him, and remembered what it was to watch her walk out the door and know she wasn’t ever coming back. Vic was never silent when she was mad; she yelled, she lashed out. What she did not do was bury her anger so deep inside herself it turned inwards — into a cancerous darkness that gnawed upon the soul. That was his fatal flaw, not hers. 

Vic Moretti was smarter than that. Smarter than _him_ , that was for damn sure. 

*** 

Later on that same night, Walt had used his cell phone to call Henry for the first time in ages. It had been awkward as hell on his end. Henry had been his usual self. But then he would be, wouldn’t he? He’d had a cell phone when they became a _thing._

“Walter, do you want company or do you want to be alone?” Henry had asked, succinct and knowing him so damn well he almost cried. He’d grunted out a rough and broken-up, “yes,” into the phone, and that had been that. Henry showed up thirty minutes later with _Rainer_ in offering, and he’d let him in. 

Walt didn’t speak another word that night. 

But it had been better not being alone. 

Henry could’ve said or done a lot of things that night; and Walt would have listened. Henry could’ve opened doors that had remained firmly shut between them since Martha; doors that it would be like prying open old wounds to touch. It was only now, all these years later, that scar tissue had begun to toughen the skin. His heart in a lot of tiny pieces scattered across the floor, anything his friend said that night would’ve been taken as Gospel. But that wasn’t Henry’s way, and Walt had reason to be grateful. He knew he’d fucked up; and there was no use in speaking of it more than that. 

*** 

_Friday, Walt’s Cabin:_

The talking to Henry Standing Bear part came later. Much later, after he’d had time to think and think and think until he couldn’t stand being stuck in his own damn head. He was a hamster running on a wheel that only went in circles, a dog chasing its own damn tail, a man sick to death of thinking. After too much alcohol, and still not enough to burn out all the pain inside, Walt opened his mouth and hell if he remembered all that fell out in a drunken deluge. 

Walt remembered Henry’s steadying presence though; his surety in the path he walked. When Walt spoke, stilted and hard as it was to grit out the words, he felt _heard_. 

Henry was the bulwark the storm of his emotions crashed against that night. He remained unshaken by Walt’s whiskey-courage induced rambling. Walt knew he was pretty damn lucky in his friends; he hadn’t always been the easiest person to be around, sober or drunk. 

Walt remembered clocking out on Friday and driving up to his cabin to see Henry waiting for him, seated on the front porch with a silent offering of more free beer. Again. Walt accepted, his legs all but falling out from under him in a semi-coordinated slump to the ground. 

Henry kept his eyes on the horizon, both men keeping watch of time side by side in comfortable silence. But eventually, like the good friend he could be, Henry had asked: 

“Rough day?” 

“Yeah.”

Henry had made a non-committal _hmm_ sound. Walt knew Henry and all his various _‘hmm’s,’_ this one would be followed with a question. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No.” 

“Okay.”

Silence had its place, and it’s time, but it did not last the whole night. In the morning Walt didn’t remember all that passed between him and Henry. It became a blurry haze, alcohol burning out the sadness for a couple hours. But he felt better, too, and he knew that wasn’t just the alcohol. That was just Henry. Hell, if he could recall what exactly they said to one another in the midnight hours, but he felt better after than he had before. 

Walt didn’t blame Vic, not too much anyhow. Vic was a smart woman; she saw the writing on the wall and walked before things reached _incendiary_. Words got said, feelings got hurt but it was better this way. _That_ he truly believed. 

He wasn’t very good at being with someone. Martha had been his one shot at happiness; a woman who knew how to read his silence and prod him into speaking without making it an argument that left both parties worn out and tired. It was no good for him, and it was no good for Vic living like that. 

Walt only knew one other person able to do that for him. It was the same man who had hauled his creaking bones to his bed, tugged off his boots and rolled him into his sheets with the blankets tucked over his shoulders. 

Might have carded a hand through his graying hair, too. It wouldn’t have surprised Walt any, if he had. He’d done it before… 

Anyone other than Henry, he’d be full of bluster and hot air on the Saturday morning after. His face would be red with mortification that he’d poured out his heart like a drunken sop. But it wasn’t just anyone he’d metaphorically stripped naked in front of. It _was_ Henry, who for the record had seen his buck-ass naked often enough that the thought was hardly alarming. Or _new_ , for that matter. 

He certainly wouldn’t feel so comfortable lazing in bed so late into the morning with company in the house while his head throbbed cruelly, his mouth reeking of old beer, and his morning hardness thankfully buried by the multitude of blankets heaped on him. Sweats were shit at preserving modesty. Blankets must have been courtesy of Henry. Walt supposed he must have cut a pretty miserable figure last night to garner such extra attention. 

He remembered Henry and his warm, strong hands half-dragging, half-carrying him to his bed. How he hadn’t been much help, letting Henry do all the work. How his own hands had wandered, slipping under old flannel button-ups until he was touching warm skin, his weight held steady by Henry’s lean whipcord strength. He’s still not sure how the hell Henry manage to drag him to his own bed when the last thing he recalled was sprawling on the floor by the crackling fire. He had trusted that his friend would not let him fall – that he remembered. And the indrawn hiss of Henry’s breath, startled surprise that almost left Walt face down on the floor when Henry almost dropped him before readjusting his grip. 

He had not touched Henry like that in a long time, too long maybe, and Henry had clearly not been expecting it. Walts’ dick twitched with interest at the memory. He wasn’t _too old_ for that even if it was little more than another morning annoyance. 

Anyone _else_ in his space when he was like this, he’d be cranky, edgy, and unpleasant. But it _was_ Henry who’d seen worse than his crazy bed head, bad morning-after breath, and his morning wood. Shit, there was no part of him Henry hadn’t already seen. Walt resisted the urge to rub one out thinking of all the things he and Henry and Martha used to get up to when it was late and no one was around to see. They weren’t things easily forgotten, after all.

Walt shook away the thoughts and rising temptation. It wouldn’t be right, doing that, with Henry in the other room oblivious to what he was thinking. It was _Henry_ who’d popped his head in exactly twenty minutes ago to see if he was awake, and then withdrew without saying anything. The other man let him alone to lie in bed nursing his throbbing head with the glass of water and ibuprofen that miraculously appeared on his nightstand. Knowing Henry, he’d probably been preparing to wake him in a possibly irritating manner if he was not.

Walt supposed it was fine. It was just Henry. Part of loving a person was willingly overlooking annoying habits. Waking him in bizarre, _always vexing_ , ways was a Henry thing.

But it was okay. In truth, Walt had missed the ease with which his best friend knew how to maneuver him without stepping on his pride or making him feel useless. 

It was something he’d taken for granted after all these years, being so well known. 

_Best friend benefits_ , Walt figured rolling out of the bed with a groan as the cool morning air came into contact with his bare chest. Walt rubbed the sleep-grit from his eyes listening to Henry quietly moving around in the kitchen. A sure sign that Henry was in a generous mood, waking him gently with small sounds and noises out of place from the usual order. As a rule, Henry didn’t make noise when he was padding around Walt’s cabin. 

Being best friends meant he didn’t sweat the small shit anymore. So, what if he could be an annoying bastard in the morning. Henry had been there, waiting at the cabin porch with beer and nary an _‘I told you so’_ in sight, when Walt called.

That’s what mattered. 

*** 

_Saturday Morning, Walt’s Cabin:_

Walt wandered into the kitchen, wearing his oldest shirt, and his warmest sweats. It wasn’t cold yet, not really, but at times the coldness of the cabin, of his bed, weighed on him. He had buried himself in what blankets he had and it was less cold. Henry, being who he was, likely knew all this. The radio was one and some country singer was crooning to the world about the broken hearted.

Walt paused to consider if this was Henry’s way of pointing out what he had sounded like last night. He winced, his left eye twitching before he dismissed the thought out of hand.

Henry was many things, but not often cruel.

Meanwhile, the King of Country was singing about _‘easy come, easy go’_ and Walt considered maybe Henry wasn’t being cruel at all. Life went on, and seasons passed, and all that shit -- it seemed like a very _Henryesque_ message. Him and Vic had ended and it cut him up good – but they’d ended things before it got too much worse. And it could have been so much worse if Vic hadn’t known how to cut her loss and he hadn’t had the sense to let her do it. 

“Set the table, will you,” Henry suggested, before Walt could think too much about what he might have said last night. Or what it meant that George Strait, Martha’s favorite singer, was playing in his kitchen for the first time in years. 

Walt’s mind flashed back to last night, and he almost dropped the plat in his hand. _I want you_. He'd said it out loud, hadn’t he? It wasn't a drunken fever dream. He wondered if he should apologize as his drunken words echoed in his head: _‘I want you, same as I always have.’_ Walt remembered leaning forward, pressing a sloppy kiss to Henry’s mouth, and his look of surprise. _‘I need you, same as I always will.’_ Walt remembered, in brief flashes, the old familiar spark of desire flaring up when he’d looked at Henry sitting cross-legged on the ground beside him. 

He remembered the orange firelight flickering across Henry’s face and in his piercing dark eyes. There was something compelling, something innately Henry that Walt had never been able to shake. It was more than mere passion, the physical desire to feel naked skin to naked skin. That physicality came and went, a seed pulled along by the winds of time and inevitable change. With Henry, there was always _more_. But the cinders of desire never did flicker out, either. Not since it first flickered into existence in their wild youths as two young men growing up in _Absaroka County_. 

He also remembered a gentle rebuff. Two hands pressing into his chest, pushing him off, away from the skin he wanted to kiss, to see if he still remembered the taste. ‘ _No, not like this, Walter.’_

He remembered the feel of hands carding through his hair, blunt nails scraping his scalp. It was a universal gesture of comfort shared between lovers and one that Henry had often employed. ‘ _You are very, very drunk, my friend.’_ A chaste kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth...Or was that part a dream? 

Walt absently thumbed at his lips and decided he would rather pretend it was not a dream, whatever the truth. 

Walt set the table, his mind barely on the task at hand. All the while Walt’s mind was quietly spinning away in his head. _It was too soon to try anything -- Henry was right to have turned him down._ Drunk, not drunk, wanting Henry wasn’t exactly new territory for either of them. But it wouldn’t be taken rightly if he started something now. He wasn’t dumb enough to not see that clear. Freshly single as he was with Vic having left him to rattle around this cabin of ghosts alone. 

Walt knew what a woman might think, in the same circumstances. And it wasn’t anything he was willing to risk. Henry was not by any stretch of the imagination a _woman_ but Walt had no plans to risk making him think he was something less than what he wanted. Maybe even _needed_. A moment’s spark wasn’t worth tanking a lifelong friendship, even if it was more than just a spark. It was _Henry_ , which made it both very complicated and very simple. 

Walt looked up at the sound of someone clearing their throat. _Right._ He’d been off in his head again. Walt felt a red blush crawl up his neck but his friend didn’t comment.

Must have decided this wasn’t the time for ribbing. 

Henry just smiled patiently, wearing his usual tiny grin that reached his eyes. Nodded towards the table and went back to making a plate of scrambled eggs and crispy bacon strips. Walt’s stomach rumbled loudly when he smelled the food and he forgot to be embarrassed as he set the coffee pot to boiling. 

If Henry wasn’t bothered, well then, neither was he. Walt ate his breakfast, drank his coffee, black with one lump of sugar and refrained from poking when Henry put a lot more than one lump of sweetener into his, daring him to comment as it softly plunked into his mug. Walt enjoyed the moment, a silence broken only by the sounds of utensils clinking and plates moving. Walt held the peace and said nothing. He planned on there being many other such mornings for teasing Henry about his notorious sweet tooth. Cady still thought her Godfather took his coffee black like her father. Henry never had disabused her of this notion when she had made it for him as a little girl tailing her mother around the kitchen only yay high. Nor when she grew into adolescence and a grown woman. 

Henry choked down whatever she gave him and thanked her, smiling that small pleasant smile he’d given the little fire-brand girl who’d given him the first cookie she made, the first cake, and everything else. 

Walt and Martha had had the good sense to pretend to eat it, that’s what napkins were for, and tablecloths. Poor Henry, who hadn’t had the heart to discreetly do the same had choked down those first attempts and coughed out a patient _‘thank you.’_ Walt shook his head, laughing a little, staring down at his coffee mug. 

Henry looked at the mug then back at his face, and smiled a little bit too. It could be they were thinking the same thing. “Remember when Cady...” 

Henry scoffed, leaning back into his chair. “ _Yes_. How could I forget, when I was the only one who actually ate the creations she made, which were barely fit to be called food? You and Martha neglected to warn me she had hit the cooking for others stage.” 

“Heh.” 

Walt didn’t waste time thinking of the strangeness of it, how Henry could always see into his thoughts so much more clearly than anyone else. It had been that way since he was 8 years old. He imagined it would still be so when he was 80. Walt smirked into his mug, taking in the simple pleasure of a morning begun without a murder, a fight, or owls come calling. 

Walt drifted in soft memories of the past. Martha, Cady, and Henry had never made the table seem too _small_. 

It had always been just big enough in those days. 

*** 

Sitting in his kitchen warmed by the sunlight trickling in through the window, content with good food and familiar company, Walt ate his breakfast, drank his coffee, and let himself remember that while he might’ve lost Vic; but he still had _this_. It had just been him and Henry sitting around a table once before in days gone by. It could be just him and Henry again.

Walt looked across the way at Henry a tiny grin stuck to his face. Yeah. This wasn’t so bad after all.

“Is something the matter?” Henry asked, with an eyebrow arched in question. Walt dropped his gaze, realizing he’d been caught staring.

Walt took a bite out of his toast, chewed, and swallowed, aware of Henry waiting for his answer.

“Wrong? Nah, not a thing.”

“You seem…happier this morning.”

“Do I?” Walt asked, leaning back in his seat. “I suppose I am, am I not allowed to be happy?” he groused.

Henry studied him for a long moment before he too had a tiny grin on his face. “I could not think of a person who deserves it more, Walt.”

“May I ask if there is a particular reason for his new outlook on life?” Henry teased, folding his arms across his chest instead of leaning them on the table edge like Walt often did.

“No reason, why does there got to be a reason?” Walt grumbled to hide the anxious flutter in his chest, and the flop in his stomach. He had a reason, but Henry didn’t need to now that right this moment.

“There does not, I was merely curious.”

“Okay,” Walt said and returned to eating his breakfast. “You should cook breakfast more often,” he blurted.

He heard the soft clink as Henry set down his mug. “I suppose I could,” Henry slowly began.

“Walt, is there something you wanted to say?” Henry asked.

“I like your cooking,” he admitted with a lazy shrug.

“Then perhaps you should stop by the _Red Pony_ more often,” Henry drawled, and Walt realized that Henry was going to make him actually say it this time. If it was what he wanted.

Henry was a man of many talents; Walt had little doubt the man knew what his half-assed conversation had been circling. His head was still throbbing, and his pride was smarting – just a little – so he played dumb. And Henry did not pursue the matter.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: 
> 
> 1\. Updates will be slow. 
> 
> 2\. I will attempt to provide adequate warnings as I go but am attempting to not give away to much yet.
> 
> Comments, kudos, & queries are welcome!


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